From the dust jacket:
This is not just another book on learning to draw. Kimon Nicolaïdes was for fifteen years one of the mainstays of the New York Art Students' League; and he was unquestionably one of the greatest teachers of drawing America has ever known. This book makes that teaching a permanent possession.
Nicolaïdes says in his Introduction: 'I plan to teach you as nearly as possible just what you would have learned if you had spent a year in one of my classes at the Art Students' League' and there was something in his teaching that made it possible for him to succeed in carrying out this ambitious plan. He made his students forget paper and pencil, or canvas and brush. Instead of teaching them his own technique, instead of teaching them to imitate the work of others, he managed to find, and release, the individual creative impulse and artistic personality of each student.
To teach this way is to be a great teacher, and Nicolaïdes was the greatest. He had a conscientiousness and a broad sympathy which enabled him to write this book for those who are unable to attend art school, putting into clear and practical form his method and practice of drawing. In his book, as in his classes, the essence of his teaching is that the student must forget superficial tricks of technique and strive to obtain a definite emotional connection between himself and the object he draws. Nicolaïdes loved to say: 'Don't draw what a thing is, draw what it is doing.'
This is a book for beginners and advanced workers. I do not care who you are, what you can do, or where you have studied, if you studied at all. I am concerned only with showing you some things which I believe will help you to draw."
We believe it is the best book on learning to draw now available. Art students who get full benefit from it will need vision and industry and tenacity, and they will be richly rewarded.
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Nicolaïdes left his manuscript unfinished, and it has been arranged and edited by Miss Mamie Harmon. Artist, editor, student and friend of Nicolaïdes, she has done her work extraordinarily well.
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